[Oer-community] In fields like OER -- Shouldn't we eat our own dog food?

Tue Oct 12 07:44:21 MDT 2010

Hi Wayne

It would seem to me that the copyright fears can be dealt with through
education and training. We have had some positive outcomes from a online
training initiative that we did last year with Cambridge University
Press/Nominet (see www.4cinitiative.org) - the evaluation results will be
presented at EDGE 2010 later this week.

I think Business Schools may play a role in researching, from a marketing
perspective, the net impact of OERs - I tend to agree that the cognitive,
affectual and conative outcomes of OER programmes are very positive from a
marketing perspective.

I think the error/quality issue is more difficult to solve. Professional
educators are not necessarily professional graphic designers or web
developers and therefore it is not merely the core content that is the
problem. A lot of thought needs to be put in to that first OER experience
and I would advocate a hand-holding approach. If we could buddy experienced
OER developers with novices, particularly those in the same discipline, we
may reduce the anxiety and actual occurence of errors and quality issues. 

A related thought is managing the pipeline of content so that the same areas
are not being duplicated. I would imagine it is better to have one really
good resource on a given topic than 30 resources of varied quality and then
none in other areas. If we can get the 30 focussing on improving and
refining one core resource, this may be more productive.

Rgds

Theo

  _____  

From: oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca
[mailto:oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca] On Behalf Of Wayne Mackintosh
Sent: 12 October 2010 10:37
To: Theo Lynn
Cc: oer-community at athabascau.ca
Subject: Re: [Oer-community] In fields like OER -- Shouldn't we eat our own
dog food?

Hi Theo, in response to your questions / issues:

<Fear of loss of copyright>

Open content licensing does not necessarily mean that academics and
educators loose their copyright. For instance, Creative Commons licenses are
based on a culture of permissions. The creators of OER can retain their
copyright but license their work by providing a number of permissions -- eg
reuse, modification etc. on condition that downstream users acknowledge
their sources. So no loss of copyright ;-)

<Loss of income>.

With reference to the creation and reuse of educational materials -- the
salaries of the majority of educators working at tertiary education
institutions at state funded institutions are indirectly paid by their
respective governments. I don't see that producing teaching materials as OER
will result in a loss of income for educators. 

On the contrary, I think OER demonstrates a commitment to the core values of
education to share knowledge freely -- we should celebrate this. 

Some tertiary education institutions might suggest that they will loose
competitive advantage by opening up their materials. I'm not aware of any
research evidence that shows a decline in student enrolment at any given
institution using OER resources as part of their curriculum.  In reality, I
think students choose where they will study based on the reputation and
quality of learner support provided -- not the prescribed texts or learning
content in courses. 

<fear of breach of copyright>

This is a real concern -- most educators are not well versed in the
complexities of copyright. In the near future, we are aiming to address some
of these concerns by developing guidelines and free online workshops for
educators around open content licensing. If you're interested in helping us
out in addressing these concerns -- feel free to join this project involving
OCWC, OERF and Creative Commoners. (See:
http://wikieducator.org/Open_Content_Licensing)

<fear of error>  

That is a normal and reasonable concern.  It relates to the notion of
"learning to share".  In reality very few of us have the skills to produce a
perfect product without repeated revisions cycles drawing on feedback from
our peers.  In real life we all start with a draft concept, and improve as
we go along. So developing OER using open peer-collaboration models is
normal and quite human. We just need to get better in supporting each other
in dealing with these legitimate fears. In real life -- its OK to make
mistakes, its a part of a natural learning process :-).

<fear of perceived quality> 

This is also a concern in the real world. However, as professional educators
we can produce high quality results. We have the power and autonomy to
produce high quality resources. Quality is equally important in both closed
and open models. Why should the quality of OER be any different?

Great questions -- as professional educators, let's work together in finding
the solutions!

Cheers
Wayne

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 10:08 PM, Theo Lynn <theodore.g.lynn at gmail.com>
wrote:

How do we overcome some of the problems Sudhakar mentions:

- fear of loss of copyright 
- fear of loss of income
- fear of copyright infringement
- fear of error
- fear of perceived poor quality

Many academics I have spoken to in relation to open courseware, and in
particular those who have never contributed OER, cite fear of infringing
copyright and also negative perceptions of quality and even errors in
materials. This fear of judgement is a major barrier.

If we know why people don't open up resources, then we can address.

Are there other barriers/solutions?

Rgds

Theo

_____________ 
Dr. Theo Lynn
Director, DCU LINK Research Centre
Dublin City University

t: +35317006873
e:  <mailto:theo.Lynn at dcu.ie>  <mailto:theo.Lynn at dcu.ie> theo.Lynn at dcu.ie

On 12 Oct 2010, at 08:18, Wayne Mackintosh <
<mailto:wayne at oerfoundation.org> wayne at oerfoundation.org> wrote:

Hi Sudhakar 

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 7:26 PM, Sudhakar Agarkar <
<mailto:s_agarkar at hotmail.com>  <mailto:s_agarkar at hotmail.com>
s_agarkar at hotmail.com> wrote:

In India I am engaged in developing open educational resources for schools.
I am focusing on all three stakeholders namely students, teachers and
parents. I am finding it difficult to get suitable material for my project.
There are only a few persons who are ready to share their manuscripts. A
large majority are concerned with the copyright and the honorarium that they
would get.

The OER  <http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Home> Foundation is more than happy
to help where we can, and we can connect you with educators in India who
share your objectives. 

There is an impressive and active WikiEducator community in India (see:
<http://wikieducator.org/India>  <http://wikieducator.org/India>
http://wikieducator.org/India) fostering the development of OER. The Indian
chapter was formerly launched by Dr. M.S. Swaminathan (see
<http://wikieducator.org/India/wikieducator_launch>
<http://wikieducator.org/India/wikieducator_launch>
http://wikieducator.org/India/wikieducator_launch) father of the green
revolution and honoured by Time Magazine as one of the top 20 most
influential figures in Asia (
<http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/cover1.html>
<http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/cover1.html>
http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/cover1.html). I
encourage you to connect with the WikiEducator OER team in India (
<http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_Indian_Ambassadors>
<http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_Indian_Ambassadors>
http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_Indian_Ambassadors).

The OER Foundation provides free online training to educators around the
world who want to develop wiki skills for OER development through the
Learning4Content initiative. The next workshop starts on 20 October -- see
<http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C46/Register>
<http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C46/Register>
http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C46/Register and feel
free to spread the word.

In New Zealand, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education the OER
Foundation is working on a project to build a national OER commons for the
school sector (see  <http://wikieducator.org/OERNZ>
<http://wikieducator.org/OERNZ> http://wikieducator.org/OERNZ). All our
planning documents and resources are freely available under open content
licenses and you are most welcome (and free) to reuse, adapt and modify
these for supporting OER in the school sector in India.  The OERNZ
Newsletters may help generate a few ideas (see:
<http://wikieducator.org/New_Zealand_Schools_OER_Portal/Resources/OERNZ_News
>
<http://wikieducator.org/New_Zealand_Schools_OER_Portal/Resources/OERNZ_News
>
http://wikieducator.org/New_Zealand_Schools_OER_Portal/Resources/OERNZ_News)
. All these Newsletters are available in open file formats which you can
adapt modify and reuse for your own purposes.

Cheers
Wayne

  _____  

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:25:44 +1300
From:  <mailto:wayne at oerfoundation.org>  <mailto:wayne at oerfoundation.org>
wayne at oerfoundation.org
Subject: [Oer-community] In fields like OER -- Shouldn't we eat our own dog
food?
To:  <mailto:oer-community at athabascau.ca>
<mailto:oer-community at athabascau.ca> oer-community at athabascau.ca

Hi Everyone,

Congratulations to Susan and team at Athabasca University for continued
support of this OER forum and community. 

In the corporate world "eating your own dog food" is when a company uses the
products that it makes - the idea being that "if you expect customers to buy
your products, you should also be willing to use them". (See Wikipedia -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food.)

Notwithstanding the phenomenal progress of the open content and free culture
movements over the last decade, OER still has a long way to go before it is
mainstream practice in the formal education sector. Paul Stacey's suggestion
of encouraging institutions to use and remix OER created externally is a
good one because it will teach organisations the value of sharing. 

In the OER world we are still in the early learning phases of our own
capability maturity. We now need to shift from the notion of "sharing to
learn" to "learning to share". "Sharing to learn" focuses on the core value
and purpose of education -- that is, to share knowledge freely.  However,
"learning to share" is the real challenge but also the "competitive
advantage" of OER ;-).

As movement, if we a serious about nurturing the development of sustainable
OER ecosystems on a global scale -- I think we should start "eating our own
dog food". That is, as individual OER projects fostering and promoting
openness, transparency and collaboration through self--organising and open
systems. 

The OER landscape is characterised by project silos with very little
collaboration among OER initiatives. There is a high level of redundancy and
duplication of core resources used to support OER projects. For example,
funding proposals and grant applications are typically developed under
all-rights reserved copyright. Core policy documents and strategic meetings
associated with OER projects happen behind closed doors and not very
transparent. 

IMHO, our strategic point of difference (when compared to closed models)
must be our openness.  

Shouldn't we as the OER movement be more open and start eating our own dog
food? What can and should we collectively be doing to leverage our openness
for the benefit of society?  

If we are serious about real social change let's make a shift towards open
philanthropy (Here I'd recommend reading Mark Surman's ideas on the concept
of open philanthropy -
<http://commonspace.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/open-philanthropy-and-a-theory-
of-change/>
<http://commonspace.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/open-philanthropy-and-a-theory-
of-change/>
http://commonspace.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/open-philanthropy-and-a-theory-o
f-change/)

Cheers
Wayne
-- 
Wayne  <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg> Mackintosh, Ph.D. 
Director OER Foundation <http://www.oerfoundation.org/> 
Director, International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator
<http://www.wikieducator.org/> 
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg 

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-- 
Wayne  <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg> Mackintosh, Ph.D. 
Director OER Foundation <http://www.oerfoundation.org/> 
Director, International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator
<http://www.wikieducator.org/> 
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg 

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-- 
Wayne Mackintosh <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg> , Ph.D. 
Director OER  <http://www.oerfoundation.org/> Foundation
Director, International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Founder and elected Community Council Member, Wikieducator
<http://www.wikieducator.org/> 
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg 

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